This application is based upon Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-287311, filed on Sep. 20, 2001, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner, which has an automatic air-conditioning control function and a learning control function of a passenger""s preference for reflecting the passenger""s preference to air-conditioning.
2. Related Art
An air conditioner such as the one disclosed in JP-A-8-197933 has a learning control function. The air conditioner memorizes the preset temperature in each condition determined by the detected value of the environmental condition of a vehicle such as the inside air temperature and the outside air temperature. When the passenger performs the changing operation of the preset temperature to change the inside air temperature to the preferred temperature of the passenger, the air conditioner learns the preference of the passenger by changing the preset temperature, which is memorized in the memory portion in association with the detected value of the environmental condition of the vehicle when the changing operation is conducted, to the temperature corresponding to the preferred temperature of the passenger. The air conditioner automatically controls the condition in the vehicle based on the preset temperature, which is indicated by the memory portion in association with the detected value of the environmental condition of the vehicle at the time when the detected value of the environmental condition of the vehicle is change while the air-conditioning operation is activated.
On the other hand, there is another air conditioner that learns the passenger""s preference of, for example, the blowing mode of the conditioned air, the amount of the conditioned air blown into the passenger compartment, the sucking mode of the air, the blowing direction of the conditioned air from the air duct or the like in addition to the learning control function of the temperature as described above.
However, the air conditioner described in the prior art changes the temperature of the air blown into the passenger compartment drastically when the difference between the detected value and the preset value of the temperature is large, whereby the passenger feels uncomfortable.
Moreover, in the above-described other type of the air conditioner that learns the passenger""s preference relating to the blowing mode and the like, the sound pressure level is rapidly increased to cause uncomfortable feeling to the passenger when, for example, the amount of the air blown into the passenger compartment is rapidly increased, or the sucking air mode is rapidly changed from an outside-air mode to an inside-air mode.
An object of the invention is to provide an improved vehicle air conditioner that controls air conditioning automatically.
According to an aspect of the present invention, the air conditioner has an operational portion for setting a desired condition in the air conditioning of the vehicle that is manually operated by a passenger, a memory portion for memorizing information of said desired condition in association with a detected value of environmental condition relating to the air conditioning of the vehicle, and for correcting the memorized information of said desired condition based on an operation of the operational portion. The air conditioner automatically controls the air conditioning in a passenger compartment of the vehicle based on the memorized information determined by the detected value of environmental condition that is read from the memory portion. When the content of the former memorized information read before the detected value of the environmental condition changes is different from that of the latter memorized information read after the detected value of environmental condition changes, the content of the former memorized information is varied gradually so as to approximate that of the latter memorized information, and then, the air conditioner automatically controls the air conditioning based on said gradually varied information.
Suppose that the memorized information relates to inside air temperature that the passenger prefers, even if the difference between the preset temperatures respectively read before and after the detected value of environmental condition changes is large, the temperature of the air blown from a blow-out port gradually changes since the inside condition of the vehicle is automatically controlled in accordance with the gradually varied information, thereby reducing or eliminating the uncomfortable feeling of the user caused by the rapidly change of the temperature of air blown into the passenger compartment.
There might be many ways to gradually change the memorized information.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a vehicle air conditioner has various blow-out modes such as a FOOT mode in which the conditioned air is blown to an upper body of the passenger, a FACE mode in which the conditioned air is blown to feet of the passenger and a BI-LEVEL mode in which the conditioned air is blown to both of the upper body of the passenger and the feet of the passenger, and automatically changes these blow-out mode. In this air conditioner, when the blow-out mode is changed from the FOOT mode to the FACE mode because of the change in environmental condition, the blow-out mode is changed from the FOOT mode to the FACE mode through the BI-LEVEL mode, vise versa.
With this feature, the blow-out mode is not changed from the FOOT mode to the FACE mode directly, thereby reducing or eliminating the uncomfortable feeling of the passenger that would be caused by the rapidly change.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description made with reference to the accompanying drawings.